


stone and wood and chrome

by Snickfic



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Arranged Marriage to Prevent Extradition or Encarceration, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic
Summary: “You cannot be saying that youwantto be married to me,” Loki said.“It’s true that I did not say that,” Heimdall said.
Relationships: Heimdall/Loki (Marvel)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 102
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	stone and wood and chrome

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this treat. <3

“You hate this, obviously,” Loki said.

Heimdall reflected that a great many things were obvious to Loki that were not so apparent to other people. He said, “I agreed.”

“You cannot be saying that you _want_ to be married to me,” Loki said.

“It’s true that I did not say that,” Heimdall said.

Loki scowled ferociously and returned to distributing his few personal items around the rooms they were to share. Fortunately the rooms were furnished, for the Asgardians had arrived with little in the way of the items usually required for living. The style was sleek but marked with the symbols of older Wakandan life. Items of stone and twisted natural wood sat next to fixtures of chrome and sweeping glass windows. Heimdall walked to the nearest of those and looked out on the spires of Wakanda’s golden city.

After a while, Loki joined him. “You must feel right at home,” Loki said, nodding towards the view. “Of course, the range is far less than that from your observatory, but.” He gave a philosophical shrug.

“Your pragmaticism continues to extend much farther for other people’s problems than your own, I see,” Heimdall said.

Loki shot him a startled look. Yes, that had been rather sharp, Heimdall supposed. Not undeserved, but impolitic—a poor sign at the beginning of this purely political marriage. Heimdall ought to soften it somehow or offer a distraction. “The corners are square,” he said. Now Loki peered at him as if concerned for his sanity. “The observatory was a hemisphere. The Grandmaster’s ship showed little interest in conventional geometry. But here—” 

He gestured behind them, and Loki’s gaze followed. “Square corners,” Loki repeated dubiously. Then, “But you do hate it. The marriage.”

“ _You_ hate it,” Heimdall pointed out. “You hate that Earth’s leaders insisted on this condition of your residence here, you hate that Thor agreed, and most of all you hate that _you_ agreed. I don’t believe _I_ have ever expressed an opinion on the matter.” Thor had asked him, once Heimdall made his offer: _Are you certain this is what you wish, Heimdall?_ But Thor in his gratitude had been more easily distractable than Loki, and no one else had ever inquired.

“You cannot possibly want to be married to me,” Loki said, with dawning suspicion. “I encased you in ice! I exiled your rightful king to Midgard and you for a traitor. I have always annoyed you.”

“You make a persuasive argument.”

“You’re only doing this as a favor to Thor,” Loki said.

“I’m sure you have the right of it,” Heimdall said, and turned away. “It’s good, you know, to see your husband’s motives and intentions so clearly. It bodes well.”

“ _Heimdall_ ,” Loki said, catching his arm. Heimdall found he did not wish to face him nor any answer more of his questions. Possibly Heimdall had made a profound mistake in agreeing to this, except when he thought of the relief in Thor’s eyes, he could not quite bring himself to regret it—not yet, at least. He had plenty of time for that still.

But Loki did not let go of Heimdall’s arm, and after a while, Heimdall turned to subject himself to Loki’s searching gaze. The trouble with Loki was that he noticed so little of what a person might want him to notice and so much of what they might not. At last, scowling in puzzlement, Loki let go of him and said, “What possible reason could you have for wanting to marry me?”

“Well, you are a prince,” Heimdall pointed out.

Loki scoffed. “As though that means anything now. We’re refugees, or hadn’t you noticed.”

“You’re a powerful sorcerer.”

For just a fraction of a second, Loki allowed himsef to be flattered before visibly dismissing that, too. “You’ve magic of your own, and you’ve never been impressed with mine.” That was not quite fair. Heimdall was frequently unimpressed with the uses Loki put his magic _to_ , true. 

He doubted Loki would appreciate the distinction. “You’re not unattractive,” Heimdall said. Now Loki just rolled his eyes. Heimdall found himself turning away again—back to the window, of course. There was something in what Loki said, after all, about feeling at home with a view, however limited, spread out before him. Heimdall inspected a rooftop garden some stories below and said, “Perhaps I desired companionship.”

Loki did not scoff so quickly this time. Slowly he said, “You never did before.”

“Didn’t I?” Perhaps he hadn’t, truly. He had been solitary for so long, and he did not remember being unhappy. Without letting himself consider too hard the risks of telling Loki something true, he said, “Did you ever meet Gunnhild on the ship? Dark hair, perhaps eight years old.”

“No,” Loki said, drawing out the word: _get on with it_.

“She often came to the bridge and asked me to tell her what I saw. That was when I could still see some distance, of course.” Was it Midgard that dimmed his sight, something in the earth or the air? Or was it only that the gift was exhausted, now that Asgard no longer required it? He couldn’t see beyond the Wakandan mountains, now. 

Heimdall dragged his thoughts back to the topic at hand. “No one visited my observatory anymore, not in some years—not without needed something from me.”

Loki considered this a while. “So it’s children you’re after,” he said at last.

Suddenly Heimdall was weary—not an infrequent experience when talking to Loki, but one that seemed to happen more often to Heimdall these days even when Loki was nowhere to be found. “Never mind, Loki. You were correct the first time.”

“Heimdall,” Loki said. Unwillingly, Heimdall turned to meet his gaze. Loki’s brow was furrowed. “There must be many other people who—whose _companionship_ you’d prefer to mine.”

“Perhaps,” Heimdall admitted. “But none who were in such immediate need of a spouse.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “You really are insufferably noble. You might be worse than Thor.”

“A dire judgment indeed,” Heimdall said, humored despite himself.

“Mm,” Loki said, in what sounded like agreement. It was his turn to look out across the vista, and Heimdall followed his line of sight to Mount Bashenga, guarded by its fearsome stone panther. Tone suspiciously light, Loki said, “It’s a foolish thing you’ve done. You’ll regret it soon, I expect.”

“That remains to be seen, don’t you think? And it depends somewhat on you.”

“I revise my statement. You’ll regret it sooner.” There was a fixedness to Loki’s gaze now, a stiffness to his shoulders that made Heimdall wish to massage them until they loosened. Many times had he looked upon Loki, similarly unhappy, and wished to smoothe the furrow from his brow with his thumb, as though the source of all Loki’s dire moods was to be found in the dips and grooves of his forehead.

But was Loki not his husband now? Husbands were allowed liberties, at least in theory, even if theories rarely survived first contact with Loki. 

Heimdall pressed a palm to Loki’s back, between his shoulder blades, and Loki froze. He was warm to the touch through the thin linen shirt, the sort of clothing they’d all quickly accustomed themselves to in the Wakandan heat. When Loki didn’t protest or move away, Heimdall rubbed a careful circle in Loki’s back.

“Why do I feel as though I’m a child with colic?” Loki asked.

“Would you like me to stop?”

“Suit yourself,” Loki said, which was practically encouragement. Heimdall mapped the terrain of Loki’s shoulder blades under his linen shirt, the long line of his spine, his ribs. “Heimdall—” Loki began, and then Heimdall leaned over and kissed Loki’s mouth. When he retreated, Loki said, “I don’t know what’s happening.”

“Perhaps you need not regret the marriage either,” Heimdall said.

Loki’s stare was full of distrust and poorly disguised hope and even more poorly disguised anguish: an expression entirely Loki’s, impossible to mistake. Heimdall tugged him close, and this time Loki kissed back, awkward and hungry. “You cannot mean,” Loki said against Heimdall’s mouth, but he didn’t seem to know how to finish.

Heimdall wasn’t sure either of them knew what they were speaking of anymore. He stepped back so that he could look Loki in the eye. “My prince,” Heimdall said. “I have vowed to keep you, to honor and defend you for so long as it please us both. Isn’t it possible I might also care for your heart? That I might hope to enjoy a life with you?”

“ _Do_ you?” Loki demanded.

Loki had never trusted rhetoric, with good reason. He wielded it far too often to be fooled by it, just as his father had wielded it against him. Yet Heimdall found it impossible to look in Loki’s eyes and speak honestly. Instead he must look away to the hills, golden in the late afternoon, that cradled Birnin Zana. Feeling as though he handed Loki a naked blade by the hilt, already at an angle to pierce his own armor, Heimdall said, “I do.”

There was a pause, a full and rich silence. “How odd,” Loki said at last. He joined Heimdall once again at the window. After a moment, fingers brushed against Heimdall’s, so lightly as to be almost imperceptible. 

Together he and Loki looked out onto the rooftops.

[end]


End file.
